Abstract
This chapter discusses estimates, projections, and forecasts, which are terms that describe the calculation of past, present, and future events, respectively. Estimates correspond to the past and present and both projections and forecasts correspond to the future. The study of demography covers five basic topics: the size of the population; its distribution across geographic areas; its composition (e.g., age, sex, race, and other characteristics); changes in population size, distribution, and composition over time; and the determinants and consequences of population growth. Focusing on the first four topics, we describe a number of basic demographic concepts, define some commonly used terms, and then describe a number of statistical measures used in demography.
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Notes
- 1.
The IM and OM terms include both domestic and foreign migrants. If information is only available on net migration the IM and OM terms would be replaced by ± NM (net migration).
- 2.
A proportion is a type of ratio where the numerator is a subset of the denominator, such as the portion of the population aged 65 years and older, males, employed, or married. Proportions have a range from zero to one. A percentage is a proportion multiplied by 100.
- 3.
Another important ratio used in the H-P method is the cohort change ratio (CCR), which is the population aged x at time t divided by the population aged x-n at time t-n, where n is the number of years between the two time points of the population data (e.g., n = 10 if the CCR is based on the previous two decennial censuses). Chapters 1 and 4 discuss CCRs in detail.
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Baker, J., Swanson, D.A., Tayman, J., Tedrow, L.M. (2017). Basic Demographic Concepts. In: Cohort Change Ratios and their Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53745-0_2
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